Rosemary may protect flavour in processed chicken

Adding rosemary to minced chicken meat before high-pressure
processing could help maintain flavour, according to Brazilian and Danish
researchers reporting recently in the journal Innovative Food Science and
Emerging Technologies.

The researchers, from the
State University of Campinas in Brazil and the Royal Veterinary and Agricultural
University in Denmark, investigated the effect of a high pressure processing
treatment and subsequent cooking (95 degrees Celsius) on the formation of lipid
oxidation products of minced chicken thigh and breast meat with and without
prior addition of rosemary at 0.1 per cent.

Electron spin resonance
(ESR) spectroscopy was used to quantify lipid oxidation in the minced chicken
meat.

After 10 hours of storage, the researchers found that the level
of lipid oxidation was significantly lower in the rosemary treated meats (55
percent less for thigh meat and 42 percent less for breast
meat).

"Rosemary showed a clear antioxidative effect in
pressure-processed samples after a subsequent heat treatment and rosemary was
found both to inhibit the radical formation and the subsequent lipid
peroxidation and oxygen consumption," reported the researchers.